Love Blooms in the Most Unexpected Ways
by squiresteve
Summary: Crutchie is left alone to think about his lost love in a rooftop-solitude-hour-type-thing. What will come of it? What will happen? I don't know!


It was a clear night, and Crutchie stared up at the cloud-filled sky. Well, his name wasn't really Crutchie, it was actually Benjamin Crutchowski, but ever since young Ben hurt his right leg in a snowboarding incident, the somewhat loving nickname Jack gave him stuck with the other boys.

_Jack_.

Crutchie stood at about five feet, but because he was sitting down, he was only really two feet. He was on the lodging house's rooftop, where Crutchie went to think about things when life was getting too heavy. He thought about stupid things, such as his future, where his next meal was coming from, and if his muddy boots and lack of socks would cause him to develop elephantitus. But he also thought of important things, like the boy who turned his life around for good: Jack Kelly.

Jack was an older boy, a good three months older than Crutchie. He was the one who discovered the rooftop and shared it with Crutchie in the first place, but now had decided to grow up and leave their malehood bonding for girly things, like girls. Crutchie did not let this transition bother him, though. Despite his life-altering handicap following that gangster shoot-out, Crutchie remained strong and tough as bolts.  
Not this night, though. After Jack got with Katherine a whole three days ago, Crutchie occassionally took solitary thinking sessions on the rooftop, and not the smart people kind. No, these solitary thinking sessions were the sad people kind, and Crutchie was definitely a sad person. Sad about having to work as a newsie even though he couldn't walk and carry newspapers at the same time, sad about his parents abandoning him after his crippling paper-mache accident, sad that his only friend and the only person who he had ever had a gay crush on had left him for a stinky girl.

Crutchie couldn't lie to himself, though. As much as he wanted to call Katherine a stinky girl, she did smell better than him. Actually, she was everything better than him. She had shinier hair, a better singing voice, and was even after him in the curtain call. Who was he kidding? Katherine was everything an awesome cube-shaped guy like Jack could deserve, and even more.

Then why couldn't Crutchie be happy for the new couple? He couldn't even close his eyes without seeing the word "sad" projected on the inside of his eyelids, he even saw little elves and green vampires running up the walls and telling him to hurt people. This was getting weird, Crutchie had finally decided, and he needed to do something about it.

He began to stand, until he realized his crutch was not where he had set it. In fact, it wasn't anywhere to be seen on the entire rooftop. This was bad: Crutchie could barely hop without it, and the other newsies could barely remember who he was. Not wanting to be stuck on the rooftop for an eternity like most normal children, he managed to hoist himself up and hop to the nearest thing to lean on, the edge of the roof.

Hark! There was a note taped to the exact spot he was leaning upon. Despite the fact that Crutchie could not read, he could read arrows, and an arrow was exactly what was drawn upon the note. Specifically, it was a down arrow.

Crutchie looked down at his shoes. "Do you mean down on the ground?"

Sadly, the note did not reply. Crutchie's immediate thought was to jump off the roof and plummet to his death at the note's request. However, he had a bad habit of doing whatever people told him to do without thinking first, and considering the last time he did that he lost his entire right leg in a zamboni, he thought first.

"Well," he thought first, "Maybe I should look to see what's on the ground," while the voice in his head nodded in agreement.

The young boy leaned over the half-wall, shuffling the majority of his weight off the ground, leaving him completely vulnerable to a homicidal push. But what he found four stories below was far more menacing, in fact, so menacing, that Crutchie squealed at the same frequency of a chimpanzee.

It was his crutch, fallen on the ground and broken into itty-bitty wood chips, with the word "DUMBBUTT" scrawled out in newspaper tearings.  
"Who could do such a thing?" Crutchie cried to the heavens, expecting no reply.

"Maybe, someone... with a lot of access to newspapers." growled a menacing voice from behind him.

"Don't be silly," Crutchie replied, not bothered by the fact someone had been watching him for hours. "Who in this town has a lot of access to newspapers?"

Crutchie finally turned around, gasping at the dark figure that came forth from the shadows like Satan himself. Jack Kelly grumbled triumphantly: "Maybe... a newsie."

"Yeah, maybe, Jack." The younger boy squinted, thinking harder than he's ever thought in his thought. "I wonder who did it? I don't really remember any of their names."

"You fool, you imbecile!" Jack erupted in a fit of rage, getting on all fours and roaring to the sky. "It was me, I did it! Don't you remember, Crutchie, don't you remember anything?!"

But suddenly, Crutchie epiphanized. He flashed back to a simpler time, where the lighting was a soft white-and-yellow as opposed to the current harsh blue-and-black. "Ha ha, dumbbutt!" said Jack to Crutchie, more than likely following him saying something stupid and dumbbutt-ish, as usual.

"That was... that was your nickname for me." Tears welled up in Crutchie's eyes.

"It is my nickname for you." The older boy slowly approached the younger and did the unthinkable. Yes, he did the thing. He kissed him. On the mouth. "Dumbbutt."

"Oh, Jack!" Crutchie now had tears streaming down his face, trying to control his crying to avoid another snot-situation. "Jack, promise me. Jack."

"Yes, that's my name."

"Promise me you'll be with me forever!"

But the taller boy frowned, looking away from Crutchie's sparkling eyes. "I... I can't promise that, Crutch."

"Oh... um." He frowned sassily. "Okay."

Jack grinned and picked up Crutchie, who was actually in quite a lot of pain standing on only one leg for like an hour now. "But I can promise you five-ever!"

"Ha ha!" Crutchie laughed. "I don't get it!"

"It's more than forever. Get it? Four-ever. It's a homynym."

Crutchie gasped and slapped Jack. "That's disgusting!"

But Jack laughed it off, and the two went chuckling off into the sunset, even though the sun was already down.


End file.
